Application of Gagne’s Nine Approaches to Teach Arabic Language for Non-Native Speakers: Experimental Study at Sultan Idris Education University Malaysia (UPSI)

Introduction

Teaching a second language or a foreign language for non-native speaker is challenging for the teachers as they try to find the best strategies to enhance the teaching method and to make the leaning more effective and successful. In addition, teaching Arabic for non-native speakers is more challenging than teaching another language in a non-native environment, like in Malaysia. According to researcher’s experiences and experimental study, we found that the application of Gagne’s nine approaches to teaching Arabic language for non-native speakers is more effective and successful. This is because Gagne’s nine approaches in the classroom is not based on teachers’ teaching only, but it relates to interaction between teachers and learners, and teachers guide the learners to follow up very fast and effectively. This paper focuses on experimental study to apply Gagne’s nine approaches to teaching Arabic language for non-native speakers at sultan Idris education university Malaysia. The aim of this research is to find out how those approaches effect the teaching Arabic for non-native speakers successfully at sultan Idris education university Malaysia.

Review of Related Literature

Since our focus is on application of Gagne’s nine events to teach Arabic language for non-native speakers, we have reviewed some relevant literature. There is an article titled: ”Gagne’s nine events of instruction in Teaching _learning Transaction: Evaluation of teaches by high school students in Musoma- Tanzania” (Ngussa, 2014, p189-206). In this article, the researcher evaluated Secondary school teacher’s application of the Gagne’s nine events in a classroom session. The author emphasized that Gagne’s nine events of instruction needed to be incorporated in the process of instructional design and actual teaching. However, according to the research the author found that high school students in Musoma principality perceived their teachers to be using Gagne’s events of instruction in teaching – learning transaction in a moderate way in that the application of events is limited to the mean score of 2,50-3.49 only. From the finding of this study, we believe that the reason why majority of the teachers did not apply Gagne’s event in the classroom is probably that the teachers really did not know what is Gagne’s nine event. Thus, it is important to promote the events in the school and train the teachers to apply those events in the classroom.

Another review is “study of application of Gagne‘s nine event of instruction in the teaching Public English at the vocational college” (Ting, 2014, p207-208). The author applied Gagne’s nine events to teach a unit of “Practical English”. She divided those events into 3 parts: before starting the class, during class, and after finishing the class. According to her experience in applying Gagne’s nine events to teaching English, she found that the outcome of this application was very effective. These approaches can stimulate students’ interest in learning English and improve the quality of teaching. This research will be a model for our research and will guide us to proceed smoothly.

The most useful and helpful literature for this study is “Conditions of Learning and theory of instruction “(Gagne, 1985, p244-258). In this book, he emphasized “conditions of learning”: the internal conditions, which deal with what the learner knows prior to instruction, and external conditions, which deal with the stimuli that are presented to the learners. In chapter 12 of his book, he mentioned that a theory of instruction should relate the external events of instruction to the outcome of learning by showing how these events lead to appropriate support or enhancement of internal learning processes. For Gagne, these external events of instruction are named the nine events of instruction. Moreover, we will elaborate on these events under the topic of understanding Gagne’s nine events as a theoretical framework for this study.

Research Methods

The study employed descriptive analysis methods to explain the definition of Gagne’s nine events of instruction and their importance in education and teaching, as well as the experience of the researchers in teaching the Arabic language through the application of those nine events of instruction in the classroom.

Background of Students

In this research, we focused on the students who are studying at Sultan Idris Education University Malaysia (UPSI) who specialized in Arabic language and education as a Major Course at the degree level . All of them are non-native speakers of the Arabic Language. Prior to entering this university, the students have already completed at least 7 years of Arabic language at Arabic schools or Islamic schools. The majority of the students have mastered the 4 langauge skills: listening, speeking, reading and writing.

Scope of the Research

In this research , we will focus on the first year students at the degree level. All students are Non-native speakers of the Arabic Langauge. We applied Gagne’s nine Approaches of instruction to teach the subject ”Advance Arabic skills”. This subject emphasized on 4 skills of language . We chose a lesson titled ” The water is resource of life and it’s mystery ” from the text book titled “Arabic at your hand”, level 3.

Understanding of Gagne’s Nine Approaches:

Robert Gagne contributed systematic approaches to instructional design for teaching and learning, and his theory offers valuable ideas to be applied by trainers and teachers in any classroom. These are the nine events of instruction (Gagne, 1985, p251):

1. Gaining Attention

Gagne mentioned that the attention of students, in the sense of alertness for the reception of stimuli, is gained by introducing rapid stimulus change. He encourages instructors to gain students’ attention by gesturing or by suddenly changing the loudness of their speech, as well as by attracting them with visual or auditory stimuli related to the content of the lesson to be taught.

2. Informing Learners of the Objective

Gagne explains the need to inform the students what they will be able to do after learning. He emphasizes that when students comprehend the objective of instruction, they will acquire an expectancy that normally persists throughout the time learning is taking place and that will be confirmed by the feedback given when learning is complete.

3. Stimulating Recall of Prior Learning

The learner is stimulated by being asked to recall the information that was previously learned, thereby learning new information based on prior learning. As Slavin explained, the old information and the new information, when combined, enable an attentive, expectant student to achieve mastery of a task (Slavin, 2009, p 481).

4. Present the Stimulus

From this point, the focus is on the content that the students are going to learn. This is the main point of the class. This means presenting the essential stimulus to the learners. The stimulus is presented as an instructional event, which depends specifically on what is to be learned. The content is specific to the category of capability that is the objective, whether verbal information, intellectual skill, or any of the other varieties.

5. Providing “learning Guidance”

This event of instruction supports the internal process called “semantic encoding for storage long-term memory. “ The essence of learning guidance is to support learners in making connections between what they know and what is being learned (Gagne, Wager, Golas, & Keller, 2005, p 198).

6.Eliciting Performance

In this event, students are encouraged to practice whatever they have learned from the teacher during the class. At this stage, the learner will be the actual internal intergrating event of learrning takes hold based on sufficient leaning guideance. The new capability reflected in the objectve, whether verbal infromation, Intellectual skill, cognitive strategy, attitude or motor skill, has been encoded into a form for storage in long term memory. It is then time for them to demonstrate the newly learned capability. ( Gagne, 1985, p254)

7.Providing Feedback

At this point, the teacher communicates with the students about the correctness and the degree of correctness of their performance. As Gagne (2005) and his colleagues mentioned, there are no standard ways of phrasing or delivering feedback (Gagne, Wager, Golas, & Keller, 2005, p 200).

8.Assessing Performance

According to Gagne ( 1985, p255), assessment of performance is what is usually meant by “giving a test”. The functions of the assessment are to establish that the newly learned capability has reasonable stability and to provide additional practice that serves to consolidate what students have learned.

9.Enhancing Retention and Transfer

Retention means preventing forgetting and enhancing the student’s ability to recall what they have learned during the class. This includes knowledge and skills, and the transfer of knowledge, skills and strategies to new problems and new situations is a matter in which evidence continues to be sought.(Gagne, 1985, p255)

Application of Gagne’s Nine Approaches to Teach Arabic Language for Non-Native Speekers

As we have mentioned in the scope of the research, we chose a lesson from the textbook titled “The water is resourse of life and it’s mystery “ as a sample for this research. We divided Gagne’s nine events into 3 parts: before covering the main content, within the content, and after delivering the content.

1. Before Covering the Content

1.1Gaining Attention

The Lecturer brings a bottle of water when she enters the classroom, puts it on the table, and at the same time opens an Arabic video about “water” on youtube to attract the attention of the students. Then the lecturer asks students what they understanded from the bottle of water and what they found from video.

1.2 Stimulating Recall of Prior Knowledge

After gaining attention through the video shown and the bottle of water, the lecturer then asks the students what they know about water, and what the benefits of water are for human beings, animals, and plants. The lecturer asks the students if they are familiar with any Arabic vocabulary related to water, for example, words like hormone or pollution.

1.3 Informing the Students of Objective

Based on the prior knowledge of the learners, the lecturer explains that the purpose of this lesson is to know the benefits and importance of water for human beings, animals, and plants, to learn some new vocabulary related to water, and to study terms in Arabic grammar.

2 .Within the Content

2.1 Present the Content

The lecturer begins Lesson 14, “ the water is resource of life and it’s mastery”, from the online electronic book “ Arabic at your hand”, by using a projector. He then asks the students one by one to read aloud each paragraph. Then the lecturer explains the new vocabulary unfamiliar to the students by using the video and showing photos, as well as explaining some difficult sentences. A briefing on the benefits and importance of water for human beings, animals, and plants is also provided by the lecturer. He later divides the students into 6 groups according to the 6 paragraphs of the lesson, leaving 5 questions for each group for the students to discuss based on their understanding of the lesson. Games and competitions are also used to encourage the students to join in and answer the questions. The lecturer tries to encourage each student to participate and answer the questions.

2.2 Provide “ Learning Guidence”

During the students’ discussion period, the lecturer guides the students rather than telling them everything. For example, if students do not understand the meaning of a word, the lecturer does not give the meaning of the word, but provides example sentences using this word.

2.3. Elicit Performance ( Practice)

After reading and understanding the lesson, it is time for them to practise. The lecturer asks the students to do choral speaking on this topic to enhance their understanding of the topic.

3 After Covering the Content

3.1.Provide Feedback

The lecturer lists all incorrect words and sentences on the whiteboard during their practice period, then explains them one by one while encouraging them to proceed when they are correct.

3.2 Assessment Performance

The lecturer gives an assessment based on the exercises provided in this lesson. The purpose of the assessment is to determine what percentage of the lesson was understood by the students, and what weaknesses need future improvement.

3.3 Enhenceing Retention and Transfer

Before the end of the lesson, the lecturer asks the students what they have learned from Lesson 14, recalling whatever they learned. Students are asked to summarize the main idea of this lesson, and another student is asked to list the new vocabulary that they have learned from the lesson. At the end, some exercises are provided for the students to do after the lesson and submit in the next class.

Analysis and Discussion of Findings

From the experience of applying Gagne’s nine approaches to teaching the Arabic language to non-native speakers, we found that these approaches, unlike traditional approaches, made the class more effective and successful, and helped both the lecturer and the students in the classroom a great deal. It was much easier for the lecturer to deliver the lesson and helped students to follow along faster. We analysed and discussed this from 3 points:

(1) Before the content was provided, the students received a briefing about the content through the recall of prior learning and guidance from the lecturer. This made it easier for both the lecturer and students to move on with the class smoothly.

(2) During the delivery of the content, the students benefited from the lecturer's input in an interactive mode. The classroom was more active, and students were not bored. Students followed the lesson attentively and improved much faster, especially in remembering the new vocabulary and its application in sentences.

(3) After understanding the content, the students improved further through feedback from the lecturer, assessments, retention and transfer, and the storage of knowledge and skills in long-term memory.

Conclusion and Recommendation

This research concludes that the application of Gagne’s nine events in teaching the Arabic language to non-native speakers was very effective and successful in the classroom. It benefited both the lecturer and students in the classroom.

Based on the conclusion of this research, therefore, the researchers make the following recommendations:

(1) Every educational organization should teach Gagne’s nine events of instruction to teachers and lecturers, since not all educators are proficient in these approaches and their benefits in teaching and learning.

(2) The Ministry of Education or educational organizations should promote Gagne’s nine events of instruction in schools and universities.

References